Chapter Six – Prudence
My heart skips about ten beats the moment I sit down for breakfast to notice that there’s an extra presence in the room this morning. All the kids in the center always eat together, and there’s always staff around too, but Logan Banker isn’t very often one of them. The fact that he is today has me unnerved. I feel all crazed and out of place as I stare at him like a mad person. I can’t even reel myself in to act normally. The fact that I’ve been awake thinking of him all night long and now he’s here is almost too much to bear. I reach down to pinch my arm, just to check I’m not dreaming.
Nope, there’s pain. I’m definitely awake. What the hell does this mean?
“Ooh, looks like lover boy is here,” Leah hisses in a not too subtle manner. “For you, I bet.”
I blush brightly, I can feel my entire body heat up. The only good thing about Leah’s comment is that it drags my eyes off of Mr. Banker for a moment. I can’t even begin to look at him with the idea that he might be here for me racing through my brain. Realistically I know that he isn’t why he’s here but due to lack of sleep and the confusing feelings I have for this man, it’s hard to be normal.
With a deep breath, I move to take my seat, feeling glad that I’m actually dressed. Very occasionally I’ll come to eat in my pajamas like the rest of the children, just because it makes it easier when I’m tired but since I didn’t sleep at all, I got up early and I dressed myself quickly.
I grab a bowl of cereal and I pull it in front of myself. Then I take a couple of bites from the bowl, looking at the slightly mushy food the entire time just so I don’t look up, but I can’t eat too much because nerves have it tasting like cardboard. Inside I’m a complete and utter mess.
What is he doing here? I ask myself desperately. What the hell is going on?
I thought that I’d be okay because I had until Friday before I’d have to see him again but clearly that was just a fantasy. For sure, I’m in a complete and utter mess here. My hands are even shaking. I’m a trembling ball of nerves who doesn’t know how to behave like a normal damn person.
Nosie breaks out around me, people chat and laugh loudly like they do every morning. I guess it’s lucky that I never usually join in because no one’s suspicious about my silence now. Everyone’s taking it as me behaving the same as always. No one even bothers to look my way, which I suppose is just fine. I don’t want anyone to pick up on how jumpy and weird I am.
But the only down side to the lack of communication is the fact that I’m acutely aware of the gravitational pull that’s coming from the other side of the table, which I know is where Mr. Banker is sitting. It’s as if I’m so much in tune with his body that I know all of his movements before he even makes them. Ant that is crazy, because I barely know him at all. He’s never really shared anything with me. How can I feel like I understand him when I had to hear his first name through Leah?
“Mr. Banker?” someone saying his name sharply grabs my attention and lifts my eyes from my bowl. “What is wrong with you today? You’re all jumpy like a bunny in headlights this morning.”
Almost as if he senses the magnet between us too, his eyes scan around to meet mine. When a slight pink tinges his cheeks, I feel an affinity with him. Is it possible that he’s feeling the same connection as I am. Is he jumpy because I’m here just like I am because of him?
No, of course that can’t be the case. He chose to be here… but why is he looking at me like that? It doesn’t make any real sense. I have to assume that something’s going on or it just means I’m going insane. It makes me want to get him alone, on my terms so I’m not afraid, and to just ask him.
“Oh sorry, I think I’m just a little bit tired,” he says with a shaky voice. “I don’t know what’s wrong really. I didn’t sleep well.” He holds up his coffee mug. “I guess I need more of these.”
Everyone laughs except me, because I can barely stand the tension in the room. It’s crushing my wind pipe, squeezing my lungs, making it very difficult for me to get any air into my body at all. Without really thinking about it, I scrape my chair back noisily causing everyone to spin around to look at me, and I race from the room quickly, avoiding looking at everyone, especially him. I need an escape, I need a break. Seeing Mr. Banker like that was a shock that I need to recover from.
I gasp desperately as soon as I reach the communal area and I collapse onto the couch there while I try and get my head in order. I have too much to worry about now. This isn’t it.
Stop thinking about Mr. Banker, I warn myself. Like, at all. He’ll be left behind soon when I start the next chapter of my life in just a couple of weeks. Just like all of this will.
It’s hard to keep remembering that I’ll be eighteen very soon. It’s hard to keep my eyes on the end goal. Maybe there’s a part of me that’s so afraid I keep shutting down. That’s why I’m developing dumb ass feelings for someone that I’ll never be able to have, just as a distraction.
Screw it. I grab one of the tablets while they’re sitting around with no one on them and I start my search into the real world. There’s no time like the present after all. It’s something I need to do so why not now. That’ll prove to Mr. Banker that I’m ready to finally get out there…
Only, after looking at three apartments, I feel a bit overwhelmed, and after searching through four pages of job listings, I start to get despondent. It all sounds a bit scary, like the life that someone else should have, not me. I mean, the idea of being a waitress is one thing, but can I actually do a public facing job where I’ll be expected to be confident and chatty every single day? And what is an admin assistant? I don’t know if that’s something I’ll be able to handle with ease, or something that will crush me under the uneducated weight of my brain. I want to know it all, but I don’t.
As for the thought of setting myself out a budget… well, that’s beyond my comprehension right now. The rent prices I examined looked extortionate, so much more than the admin assistant job pays, and the last thing I want is to figure out that I’m in a hopeless situation that I won’t be able to hack.
No, instead, my itchy fingers search for something else. Something that I used to look up all the time in the beginning, but that I’ve given up on during the last couple of years because it never led to anything new. But now that I’m about to head out there in the world, maybe it’s time to find out if there is an update again. I don’t want to know, but at the same time I really have to. It’s the smart and sensible thing to do, it’s the adult choice to look. Even if I feel sick doing so.
The web page loads at an agonizingly slow pace, making my heart race in my throat by the time the image reveals itself. I get myself so worked up that by the time I see it, it takes a while to sink in.
“Oh, my God,” I gasp, clapping my hand loudly across my mouth. “Holy fucking shit.”
The words swim, they don’t make any sense, but at the same time I know exactly what they’re trying to say. Instantly I feel lost, like I have no anchor anymore, like I’m floating horribly.
“Oh, I am sorry, Pru.” Mr. Banker’s voice cuts through the silence, striking me in the heart. “I didn’t want you to find out from the Internet. That’s why I came in early today, to tell you myself.”
“My dad.” I look up at him through tear stained eyes. “He’s dead? He died in prison?”
I know he’s done bad things, I understand that what he did to me was awful and it left me hospitalized as a child. I know if he hadn’t done that I would be in a much better place now. I also understand that I felt very scared of seeing him again and that fearing him has led me to fear all men, but the idea that he got sick and he died in a damp disgusting cell is a horrifying thought. He only turned bad because we lost my mom and he didn’t know how to grieve. He has a heart of gold and there’s a part of me that remembers a lot of the good times that came before.
Plus, he’s the only family I had left. Now that he’s gone I have nothing.
“He did. We got the call today. Pneumonia, I think, they’re still working out the details.”
Mr. Banker remains over the other side of the room, creating a chasm of distance between us. As tears fall hard and fast down my face I expect him to near me to assist me in my grief, but he doesn’t. I knew that something had changed between us, I could sense it the very first moment that I laid eyes on him this morning, but now I can really feel it. He can’t bear to be close to me. Maybe that’s because he feels weird around me, or maybe it’s because he wants me gone. I don’t know and to be quite frank I don’t really care anymore. This has taken precedence in my mind.
“What am I going to do?” I weep pathetically. “Now I don’t have anyone.”
Mr. Banker doesn’t give me his usual spiel about how I have a family at the center who will always be there for me, which suggests to me that for some reason I don’t anymore. I feel incredibly unwelcome. I need to get the hell away from here before he becomes a casualty of my grief and I end up saying something that I’ll definitely regret later on. That’s the last thing I need.
I stand, dropping the tablet on the couch, and I move to the door way to leave. Before I can fully make it out of the room, Mr. Banker grabs onto my arm as if it’s a last-minute decision and he holds me there. I freeze, staring up at him, desperately begging him for answers, silently of course.
“Sorry, Pru,” he says quietly to me, leaning in so there’s no chance of eavesdroppers overhearing his words. “I know this is hard for you. We’ll talk about it whenever you’re ready.”
There’s something deep in his eyes that I don’t quite know how to decipher, but it’s definitely a look that’s only for me to see. As I nod, I wonder if me and him have a secret, an in joke that we won’t share with anyone else. I kinda hope we do but there’s part of me that thinks I’m just desperately searching for something now. I need a connection more than ever because I’m completely alone, but that doesn’t mean there is one…